It’s a Christmas blog!

3:15 pm

Kyle and I went to my family’s, in Frisco, TX, for Christmas this year. It was awesome! We played a lot of games, including Guitar Hero…

GH tiny
…Mario Kart…

MK tiny
…and the New Super Mario Bros. (Colton and Christopher had a great deal of fun throwing each other off of cliffs.)

play tinyWe got to meet Miles, Christopher and Jenny’s 8-month-old son. He’s freaking adorable!

miles tiny mom and miles tinyOn Christmas Eve, we played a Christmas Family Feud game that was a ton of fun. I only wish I could remember what had just happened to make them all look like that:

game tinyNow, a couple of pics from Christmas Day: I’m wearing the robe Kyle’s mom made for me (now I can stop stealing Kyle’s!) and switching out my old, dying watch for the new one Kyle got me.

robe tinyHere’s Kyle with his new apron!

apron tinyWe’re still trying to figure out how best to hang the set of wind chimes my parents got us, but I’m totally stoked about them.

While we were home, I also got to see Melanie, which was great (even if the picture isn’t)…

melanie…as well as go through all the stuff my parents had of mine and sort out what to keep and what to trash. Kyle had a lot of fun reading from my journal from when I was 10 or so and making us all laugh at the silliness therein, but this is me tying on an old pair of pointe shoes.

shoes tiny
The holiday was also the occasion for new family pictures. We weren’t sure what we were going to do, since the original plan was to do them outside in the park, but it was raining and freezing that day. The family ended up setting up a really nice area in our kitchen, using brown sheets as a backdrop. I don’t have the ones taken by the photographer yet, but here’s a cute one of Miles and Maddox, taken the next day.

maddox and miles tiny
We got to spend a wonderful 9 days there with family before driving back here again. We took 3 days to drive out, but we were racing a storm on our way home, so we did the return trip in 2 days. That second day was crazy: we had sunshine, fog, snow, rain, and hail! Obviously, though, we made it home safely. It was so good to see everyone while we could, though.

Baby Burro

December 18, 2010 3:36 pm

We’re crossing Arizona today. We detoured across Route 66, taking the scenic route through Oatman. Just before town we came across some Christmas trees:

IMGP4030a

I include the car and surrounding area just to provide a proper sense of the middle-of-nowhere-ness of the location.

Then when we got into Oatman we had to wait for the daily gunfight to clear the road. So while we waited we got out and bought some kettle corn and watched the baby burro:
IMGP4036aThat basically made the scenic route worth it.

Freedom of the Press

December 7, 2010 8:12 am

President Obama while in China – November 16, 2009:

But I am a big believer in technology and I’m a big believer in openness when it comes to the flow of information. I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable. They can begin to think for themselves. That generates new ideas. It encourages creativity. (emphasis mine)

Hillary Clinton – January 1, 2010:

[President Obama] spoke about how access to information helps citizens hold their own governments accountable, generates new ideas, encourages creativity and entrepreneurship. The United States belief in that ground truth is what brings me here today.

Hillary Clinton about WikiLeaks – November 29, 2010:

It is an attack on the international community…

Sarah Palin about Julian Assange – November 30, 2010:

Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders?

Senator Joe Lieberman – December 7, 2010:

It sure looks to me that Assange and WikiLeaks have violated the Espionage Act.

Philip Crowley (State Department Spokesman) – December 7, 2010:

What WikiLeaks has done is a crime under US law.

So much for Freedom of the Press and holding our own governments accountable. Also, as much as people are clamoring to charge Assange with a crime there’s the small problem of him not being a U.S. citizen. Seems rather extraordinary to charge someone with a crime under a law in a country in which they neither live nor have citizenship. But Palin apparently has the answer to that, just call him a terrorist and kill him where he stands.

Regardless of how you feel about the leaked information WikiLeaks needs to be protected the same way any other news organization would be, including the New York Times which collaborated with WikiLeaks in processing the documents and deciding what to publish.